There’s little news coming from the freshwater. Speckled perch continue to slowly pick up. The bridges on Trout and Six-Mile Creeks have been giving up a few fish. Guys working the docks are getting some specks.

Lake Lochloosa continues to be weeks ahead of other lakes, giving up limits of speckled perch when the wind stops blowing.

There are plenty of catfish. Bluegills and shellcracker are spread out along the creeks. It’s hunt-and-peck right now. Don’t stay in any one place too long. If the fish aren’t biting, they’re not there.

Mullet are staging up for a run out the mouth of the St. Johns at Mayport. They are heavy with roe if you’re into that. The bright yellow and orange eggs are considered a delicacy by those who have lived around here a little too long. It’s not the taste, so much as the preparation and aftermath, that test your grit. The roe tends to split, spit and generally make a mess of the frying pan and adjacent counter tops.

And the digestive ramifications of mullet roe can be graphic. It may be nature’s perfect laxative.

Proceed at your own peril and that of your drawers.

The Intracoastal Waterway

Fishing is firing up in the brackish waters. There are tons of redfish on the oyster bars in most of the feeder creeks into the ICW. Many will be on the short side of the 18-inch minimum size limit. Trout, too, are small but plentiful if you can find them.

Sheepshead lit up this week on the heels of the big storm and cooler water temperatures. Just about any piling you can tie up to will do. Both the Bridge of Lions and the 312 Bridge gave up good stringers. There’s no reason why the Usina and the 206 Bridge shouldn’t do the same. There are still some small ones, but they’re generally over the limit.

Flounder fishing is hot. Avid Angler weighed four fish – and they were caught on hook and line – that went 10.2, 7.4, 5.9 and 5.2 pounds for one angler who was happy to share where he caught them. Not.

The Atlantic Ocean

There were some decent catches out deep early in the week on bottom fish — and some not. One boat did catch some gags, scamp and red grouper; along with triggerfish and porgies. Another charter boat caught fish all day long but did not have one legal fish on ice at the end of the day, catching lots of big red snapper, vermillion snapper and black sea bass — all closed.

Grouper fishing on the west coast has been great. Ben Williams, who writes occasionally on the fishing page and owns a seafood shop in Jacksonville, bought three Warsaw grouper from a fish house that described them as “big ones.” When they were unloaded the three fish, gutted, pushed the scale to just over 480 pounds.

That’s some serious fish, but the Florida State record is 436 pounds. The fish was caught off Destin in 1985. In 2009, a group of Alabama anglers caught what they thought was a record estimated at 446 pounds — again off Destin. A controversy arose as to whether the fish was a Warsaw or an illegal Jewfish. Scientists lined up on both sides. The FWC ended up having a bag of filets tested for DNA and found the fish to be the latter. Small fines were handed out because the anglers had done due diligence in trying to ID the monster.

Surf fishing is the best bet going. Big whiting and lots of pompano are being caught from Ponte Vedra to Flagler Beach. The east winds could screw things up this weekend, but it should be fishable. The most important thing will be to find the cleaner water, and that varies a lot from one side of an inlet to another.

The weather

Things look decent for the weekend. Winds will blow from the east both Saturday and Sunday at 10 to 15 knots, pushing up seas of 2 to 4 feet. Lows will be in the mid-50s and highs in the mid-70s.